A Good Fall

by Ha Jin

  Both Connie and Tian giggled while the two older women were bewildered, looking at them inquiringly. Tian told them, “Ching’s so funny.”

  “Also tricky and headstrong,” added her mother.

  When dinner was over, Shulan was eager to leave without having tea. She said she’d forgotten to sprinkle water on the bean sprouts in her apartment, where the radiators were too hot and might shrivel the young vegetable, which she raised and would sell to a grocery store. Before they left, Connie gave the girl a book and assured her, “This is a very funny novel. I’ve just finished it and you’ll like it.”

  Tian glanced at the title—The Catcher in the Rye—as Meifen asked, “What’s it about?”

  “A boy left school and goofed around in New York,” Connie answered.

  “So he’s a dropout?”

  “Kind of.”

  “Why give Ching such a book? It can be a bad influence. Do you mean to teach her to rebel against her mother?”

  “It’s a good book!” Connie spat out.

  Tian said to the guests, “Let’s go.”

  The moment they stepped out the door, he overheard his mother growl at Connie, “Don’t play the scholar with me! Don’t ever talk back to me in front of others!”

  “You were wrong about the book,” Connie countered.

  Their exchange unsettled Tian, who knew they would bicker more while he was away. Outside, it got windy and the road iced over. He drove slowly. Before every intersection he placed his foot on the brake pedal to make sure he could stop the car fully if the light turned red. Ching was in the back dozing away while her mother in the passenger seat chatted to Tian without pause. She praised Meifen as an educated woman who gave no airs. How fortunate Tian must feel to have such a clearheaded and warmhearted mother, in addition to a beautiful, well-educated wife. Her words made Tian’s molars itch, and he wanted to tell her to shut her trap, but he checked himself. He still felt for this woman. Somehow he couldn’t drive from his mind her image behind the food stand, her face steaming with sweat and her eyes downcast in front of customers while her knotted hands were packing snacks into Styrofoam boxes.

  He dropped Shulan and Ching at their building and turned back. After he exited the highway and as he was entering College Point Boulevard, a police cruiser suddenly rushed out of a narrow street and slid toward him from the side. Tian slammed on the brakes, but the heads of the two cars collided with a bang; his Volkswagen, much lighter than the bulky Ford, was thrown aside and fishtailed a few times before it stopped. Tian’s head had hit the door window, and his ears were buzzing, though he was still alert.

  A black policeman hopped out of the cruiser and hurried over. “Hey, man, are you okay?” he cried, and knocked on Tian’s windshield.

  Tian opened his door and nodded. “I didn’t see you. Sorry about this, officer.” He clambered out.

  “I’m sorry, man.” Somehow the squarish cop chuckled. “I hit you. I couldn’t stop my car—the road is too damned slippery.”

  Tian walked around and looked at the front of his car. The glass covers of the headlight and the blinker were smashed, but somehow all the lights were still on. A dent the size of a football warped the fender. “Well, what should I do?” he wondered aloud.

  The police officer grinned. “It’s my fault. My car slid into the traffic. How about this—I give you a hundred bucks and you won’t file a report?”

  Tian peered at the officer’s catlike face and realized that the man was actually quite anxious—maybe he was new here. “Okay,” Tian said, despite knowing that the amount might not cover the repairs.

  “You’re a good guy.” The policeman pulled five twenties out of his billfold. “Here you are. I appreciate it.”

  Tian took the money and stepped into his car. The officer shouted, “God bless you!” as Tian drove away. He listened closely to his car, which sounded noisier than before. He hoped there was no inner damage. On the other hand, this was an old car, worth less than a thousand dollars. He shouldn’t worry too much about the dent.

  The instant he stepped into his house, he heard his mother yell, “Oh yeah? How much have you paid for this house? This is my son’s home and you should be grateful that Tian has let you live here.”

  “This is my home too,” Connie fired back. “You’re merely our guest, a visitor.”

  Heavens, they would never stop fighting! Tian rushed into the living room and shouted, “You two be quiet!”

  But Connie turned to him and said sharply, “Tell your mother I’m a co-owner of this house.”

  That was true, yet his mother also knew that Connie hadn’t paid a cent for it. Tian had added her name as a co-buyer because he wanted her to keep the home if something fatal happened to him.

  His mother snarled at Connie, “Shameless. A typical ingrate from an upstart’s family!”

  “Don’t you dare run down my dad! He makes an honest living.” Indeed, her father in Tianjin City was just scraping by with his used-furniture business.

  “Knock it off, both of you!” Tian roared again. “I just had an accident. Our car was damaged, hit by a cop.”

  Even that didn’t impress the women. Connie cried at Meifen, “See, I told you there’d be a snowstorm, but you were too vain to cancel the dinner. Did you mean to have your son killed?”

  “It was all my fault, huh? Why didn’t you learn how to drive? What have you been doing all these years?”

  “I’ve never met someone so irrational.”

  “I don’t know anyone as rude and as brazen as you.”

  “Damn it, I just had an accident!” Tian shouted again.

  His wife looked him up and down. “I can see you’re all right. It’s an old car anyway. Let’s face the real issue here: I cannot live under the same roof with this woman. If she doesn’t leave, I will and I’ll never come back.” She marched away to her own room upstairs.

  As Tian was wondering whether he should follow her, his mother said, “If you’re still my son, you must divorce her. Do it next week. She’s a sick, finicky woman and will give you weak kids.”

  “You’re crazy too!” he growled.

  He stomped away and shut the door of the study, in which he was to spend that night trying to figure out how to prevent Connie from walking out on him. He would lose his mind if that happened, he was sure.

  On Monday morning Tian went to Bill Nangy’s office. The manager looked puzzled when Tian sat down in front of him. “Well, what can I do for you, Tian?” Bill asked in an amiable voice. He waved his large hand over the steaming coffee his secretary, Jackie, had just put on the desk. His florid face relaxed some as he saw Tian still in a gentle mood.

  Tian said, “I know our company has been laying off people. Can you let me go, like Tracy Malloy?” He looked his boss full in the face.

  “Are you telling me you got an offer from elsewhere?”

  “No. In fact, I will appreciate it if you can write me a good recommendation. I’ll have to look for a job soon.”

  “Then why do you want to leave us?”

  “For family reasons.”

  “Well, what can I say, Tian? You’ve done a crack job here, but if that’s what you want, we can let you go. Keep in mind, you’re not among those we plan to discharge. We’ll pay you an extra month’s salary, and I hope that may tide you over until you find something.”

  “Thanks very much.”

  Tian liked his job, but he had never felt attached to the company. He was pretty sure that he could find similar work elsewhere but might not get paid as much as he made now. Yet this was a step he must take. Before the noon break Jackie put a letter of recommendation on Tian’s desk, together with a card from his boss that wished him all good luck.

  Tian’s departure was a quiet affair, unnoticed by others. He was reluctant to talk about it, afraid he might have to explain why he had quit. He just ate lunch and crunched some potato chips in the lounge with his colleagues as though he would resume working in the afternoon as usual. But
before the break was over, he walked out with his stuffed bag without saying good-bye to anyone.

  He didn’t go home directly. Instead, he went to a KTV joint and had a few drinks—a lager, a martini, a rye whiskey on the rocks. A young woman, heavily made up and with her hair bleached blond, slid her hips onto the barstool beside him. He ordered her a daiquiri but was too glum to converse with her. Meanwhile, two other men were chattering about Uncle Benshan, the most popular comedian in China, who was coming to visit New York, but the tickets for his show were too expensive for the local immigrants, and as a result, his sponsors had been calling around to drum up an audience for him. When the woman placed her thin hand on Tian’s forearm and suggested the two of them spend some time in a private room where she could cheer him up, he declined, saying he had to attend a meeting.

  Afterward, he roamed downtown for a while, then went to a pedicure place to have his feet bathed and scraped. Not until the streets turned noisier and the sky darkened to indigo did he head home. But today he returned without any groceries. He went to bed directly and drew the duvet up to his chin. When his mother came in and asked what he’d like for dinner, he merely grunted, “Whatever.”

  “Are you ill?” She felt his forehead.

  “Leave me alone,” he groaned.

  “You’re burning hot. What happened?”

  Without answering, he pulled the comforter over his head. If only he could sleep a few days in a row. He felt sorry for himself and sick of everything.

  Around six his wife came back. The two women talked in the living room. Tian overheard the words “drunk,” “so gruff,” “terrible.” Then his mother whined, “Something is wrong. He looks like he’s in a daze.”

  A few moments later Connie came in and patted his chest. He sat up slowly. “What happened?” she asked.

  “I got fired.”

  “What? They didn’t tell you anything beforehand?”

  “No. They’ve been issuing pink slips right and left.”

  “But they should’ve given you a warning or something, shouldn’t they?”

  “Come on, this is America. People lose jobs all the time.”

  “What are you going to do?”

  “I’ve no clue. I’m so tired.”

  They continued talking for a while. Then he got out of bed, and together they went up to Meifen in the living room. His mother started weeping after hearing the bad news, while he sprawled on a sofa, his face vacant. She asked, “So you have no job anymore?” He grimaced without answering. She went on, “What does this mean? You won’t have any income from now on?”

  “No. We might lose the house, the car, the TV, everything. I might not even have the money for the plane fare for your return trip.”

  His mother shuffled away to the bathroom, wiping her eyes. Connie observed him as if in disbelief. Then she smiled, showing her tiny, well-kept teeth, and asked in an undertone, “Do you think I should look for a job?”

  “Sure,” he whispered. “But I shouldn’t work for the time being. You know what I mean?” He winked at her, thin rays fanning out at the corners of his eyes.

  She nodded and took the hint. Then she went into the kitchen to cook dinner. She treated her mother-in-law politely at the table that evening and kept sighing, saying this disaster would ruin their life. It looked like Tian and she might have to file for Chapter 11 bankruptcy if neither of them could land a job soon.

  Meifen was shaken and could hardly eat anything. After dinner, they didn’t leave the table. Connie brewed tea, and they resumed talking. Tian complained that he hadn’t been able to stay on top of his job because his wife and his mother quarreled all the time. That was the root of his trouble and made him too frazzled to focus on anything. In fact, he said, he had felt the disaster befalling him and mentioned it to them several times, but they’d paid no attention.

  “Can you find another job?” his mother asked.

  “Unlikely. There’re more accountants than pets in New York—this is the world’s financial center. Probably Connie can find work before I can.”

  “I won’t do that until I finish my training,” his wife said, poker-faced.

  “Please, do it as a favor for me,” Meifen begged her.

  “No, I want to finish nursing school first. I still have two months to go.”

  “You’ll just let this family go to pieces without lifting a finger to help?” her mother-in-law asked.

  “Don’t question me like that. You’ve been damaging this family ever since you came.” Connie glanced at Tian, who showed no response. She continued, “Now your son’s career is headed for a dead end. Who’s to blame but yourself?”

  “Is that true, Tian?” his mother asked. “I mean, your career’s over?”

  “Sort of. I’ll have to figure out how to restart.”

  Meifen heaved a deep sigh. “I told your sister I shouldn’t come to America, but she was greedy and wanted me to get you to finance her son’s college in Canada. She even managed to have the boy’s last name changed to Chu so he could appear as your son on the papers. Now it’s over. I’ll call her and your father tomorrow morning and let them know I’m heading back.”

  Connie peered at Tian’s face, which remained wooden. He stood and said, “I’m dog-tired.” He left for the study.

  Meifen wrapped Connie’s hand in both of hers and begged, “Please help him survive this crisis! Don’t you love him? Believe me, he’ll do everything to make you happy if you help him get on his feet again. Connie, you’re my good daughter-in-law. Please do something to save your family!”

  “Well, I can’t promise anything. I’ve never been on the job market before.”

  Tian smiled and shook his head as he was listening in on them from the study. He was sure that his wife knew how to seize this opportunity to send his mother home.

  For a whole week Tian stayed in while Connie called around and went out job-hunting. She had several interviews. It wasn’t hard for her to find work since she was already a capable nurse. The following Wednesday a hospital in Manhattan offered her a position that paid well, plus full benefits, and she persuaded the manager to postpone her start for a week. She showed the job-offer letter to her husband and mother-in-law. “Gosh,” Tian said, “you’ll make more than I ever can.”

  Meifen perused the sheet of paper. Despite not understanding a word, she saw the figure “$32.” She asked in amazement, “Connie, does this mean they’ll pay you thirty-two dollars an hour?”

  “Yes, but I’m not sure if I should take the job.”

  “Don’t you want to save this home?”

  “This house doesn’t feel like a home to me anymore.”

  “How can you be so coldhearted while your husband is in hot water?”

  “You made me, and Tian always takes your side. So this house is no longer my home. Let the bank repossess it—I could care less.”

  Tian said nothing and just gazed at the off-white wall where a painting of a cloudy landscape dotted with fishing boats and flying cranes hung. His mother started sobbing again. He sighed and glanced at his wife. He knew Connie must have accepted the job. “Mom,” he said, “you came at a bad time. See, I can’t make you live comfortably here anymore. Who knows what will happen to me if things don’t improve? I might jump in front of a train or drive into the ocean.”

  “Please don’t think like that! You two must join hands and survive this blow.”

  “I’ve lost heart after going through so much. This blow finished me off, and I may never recover.”

  “Son, please pull yourself together and put up a fight.”

  “I’m just too heartsick to give a damn.”

  Connie butted in, “Mother, how about this? You go back to China next week and let Tian and me concentrate on the trouble here.”

  “So I’m your big distraction, huh?”

  “Yes, Mom,” Tian said. “You two fought and fought and fought, and that made my life unbearable. I was completely stupefied and couldn’t perform well
at work. That’s why they terminated me.”

  “All right, I’ll go next week, leave you two alone, but you must give me some money. I can’t go back empty-handed or our neighbors will laugh at me.” Her lips quivered as she spoke, her mouth as sunken as if she were toothless.

  “I’ll give you two thousand dollars,” Connie said. “Once I start working, I’ll send you more. Don’t worry about the gifts for the relatives and your friends. We’ll buy you some small pieces of jewelry and a couple packs of Wisconsin ginseng.”

  “How about a pound of vegetable caterpillars? That will help Tian’s father’s bad kidneys.”

  “That costs five thousand dollars! You can get them a lot cheaper in China. Tell you what—I can buy you five pounds of dried sea cucumbers, the Japanese type. That will help improve my father-in-law’s health too.”

  Meifen agreed, reluctantly—the sea cucumbers were at most four hundred dollars a pound. Yet her son’s situation terrified her. If he declared bankruptcy, she might get nothing from the young couple, so she’d better take the money and leave. Worse, she could see that Tian might lose his mind if Connie left him at this moment. Meifen used to brag about him as a paragon of success to her neighbors and friends. She had never imagined that his life could be so fragile that it would crumble in just one day. No wonder people always talked about stress and insecurity in America.

  Connie said pleasantly, “Mother, I won’t be able to take the job until I see you off at the airport. In the meantime, I’ll have to help Tian get back on his feet.”

  “I appreciate that,” Meifen said.

  That night Connie asked Tian to share the master bedroom with her, but he wouldn’t, saying they mustn’t nettle his mother from now on. He felt sad, afraid that Meifen might change her mind. He remembered that when he was taking the entrance exam fourteen years back, his parents had stood in the rain under a shared umbrella, waiting for him with a lunch tin, sodas, and tangerines wrapped in a handkerchief. They each had half a shoulder soaked through. Oh, never could he forget their anxious faces. A surge of gratitude drove him to the brink of tears. If only he could speak freely to them again.